If They Hurt You They Hurt Me Too
by Emono
Summary: At "Hell In A Cell", this is two ways it could've gone. One chapter is if Ted got hurt, the other if Cody got hurt. No death, just slash.
1. If They Hurt You

**Title**: If They Hurt You, They Hurt Me Too  
**Author**: Emono  
**Rating**: FRM  
**Fandom**: Wrestling  
**Pairings**: Ted DiBiase/Cody Rhodes (Codiasi)  
**Summary: **At "Hell In The Cell", this is two ways it could've gone. One chapter is if Ted got hurt, the other if Cody got hurt. No death, just slash.  
**Disclaimer**: The WWE is not mine nor are any of it's child branches, it is the 96% property of the McMahon's and God bless the bastards that work for them. I respect the sexual preferences and identities of all the wrestlers on WWE roster, and who they share a bed with is really none of my business.  
**Warnings**: No real spoilers, slash, H/C, a little angst  
**AN**: I wanted some H/C Codiasi, and the bunnies hopped to it.

* * *

Cody snapped before anyone could stop him.

Ted was taken off in a stretcher, in a neck brace for God's sake. That move Hunter did was uncalled for, nearly snapping Ted's skill right in half by putting his neck in that folded chair. Cody was bruised and bleeding, but livid as hell about the entire situation. Randy hadn't gotten backstage in time to stop the young Rhodes from grabbing a chair and stalking a clueless Hunter.

"Cody!"

Randy's desperate shout was the only warning Hunter got before a metal chair came down upon his back. This was no stunt strike, there were no fans around to please with violence. This assault was out of revenge, out of hate. Shawn didn't do a thing, frozen at the sight of who they thought of to be young, sweet boy consumed with such loathing.

"You fucking bastard!" Cody screamed as Randy caught him around the waist, dragging him from a fallen Triple H kicking and screaming "You could've killed him! You could've broken his neck with that stunt! What the hell were you thinking?!"

"That's enough, Cody!" Randy kept his arms locked around him, straining.

Tears spilled from Cody's eyes without his consent, but he kept struggling to get loose, "He's in the hospital because of you! For _what_? The goddamn entertainment?!"

"It's what they wanted!" Hunter shot back, getting to his feet "They wanted to see the villain punished, and I gave that to them! It was entertainment, Rhodes, it's our _job_."

Cody pushed Randy away, walking past them, "Fuck the job. And fuck _them_ for enjoying his pain so much."

***~P~R~I~C~E~L~E~S~S~***

After they changed out of their ring gear and showered, Randy drove Cody to the hospital himself. They sat there in the waiting room together, silent, waiting for Ted's fate to be read to them.

"What if he's paralyzed?" Cody whispered gravely, arms curled around himself protectively "What if he's dead?"

"Don't say shit like that" Randy put a hand on the back of the youth's neck, trying to offer comfort the only way he knew how "Ted's strong, he'll be fine."

Cody palmed away his tears, "But what if…?"

"Are you two here for Mr. DiBiase?"

Cody looked up, a petite red headed nurse was standing there in front of him. He nodded, she smiled gently.

"You must be Mr. Runnels" her tone was soft "You're on Mr. DiBiase's list of emergency contacts. The doctor will speak with you now."

"Can he come with me?" Cody pleaded.

She nodded.

They followed the small woman down the hall, the click of her kitten heels loud on the tile. They approached a middle-aged back man in a stark white coat, his eyes were kind.

"I'm Dr. Foreman" they both shook his hand politely "I'm Mr. DiBiase's doctor. I'll tell you now, your friend will recover."

Randy sighed in relief, Cody nearly fainted.

"I'm afraid he'll be out of the ring for some time" Dr. Foreman continued, apologetic "The injury to his neck…well, I won't bore you with the medical jargon, but he'll need to wear a brace. We're going to put it on him at the end of shift so he won't hurt himself more during the night, but I thought you'd like to see him first. He's on a morphine drip, but he's awake and aware."

Cody turned to Randy, "Can I…?"

"Go on, Codes" the older man assured him, "Go see your man."

Cody punched him in the arm, "You make me sound like a girl."

"You are a girl" Randy nudged him "Go."

Cody stepped past them both, turning the handle of the door and slipping inside. He closed it firmly behind him, the click final.

The room was dim, the only light from the backlight on the head board of the bed. Ted's insurance had gotten him a single room, alone where most would be crowded with two or three. The sounds in in the room were soft, muffled. The steady drip of the IV, the slow beep of the heart monitor, the low hum of the a/c.

Cody approached slowly, eyes drifting over his lover's form. Poor Ted. He looked…fragile. They had wrestled him into one of those powder blue hospital gown, the stark sheet pulled up his body to pool at his hips. Though Ted was physically bigger than him, and Cody knew from personal experience just how strong he was, he looked quite small with those bed gates on either side of him. The bed was tilted up, raising his upper body up. His head was supported by a flat pillow, but he looked dead asleep.

"Teddy" Cody whimpered, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. His protector, his idol, laid broken down in front of him. It made his very heart tremble. He inched closer, taking in details he'd rather forget. There was an IV in his wrist, a breathing mask over his face, and a red shiner under his left eye. The sight of this made his chest ache.

Cody slipped his hand in the others, lacing their fingers, "God, Teddy…"

Cody gave a little gasp of surprise when the hand squeezed him back.

"Codes?" azure eyes fluttered open, peering at him sleepily.

"Yeah, Teddy, it's me" Cody replied weakly, running his thumb over the knuckles.

"This morphine is the shit" Ted smiled up at him, raising his other hand slowly to show the drip line "I know those assholes fucked me up, but I can't feel a damn thing."

Cody couldn't reply, pale at his entire situation.

"Don't be freaked out, Baby-boy" Ted reached behind his head, being careful as he shed off the mask and dropped it onto the tray beside the bed "See? I'm fine."

"Ted, don't-!"

"They told me I didn't need it" Ted cut of his lover's concern, touched "Looks like I'm gonna be in a brace for a while Sucks, man."

"Y-Yeah" Cody's smile was shaky at best, his voice threatening to break.

Ted's brow creased as he slowly realized all was not well with the younger man, "What's wrong?"

"_What's wrong_?" Cody snapped, anger getting the best of him "You could've _died_, Ted. You could've been _killed_ out there, and you ask me what's wrong?! I almost lost you!"

Ted was still confused, "We knew this could happen. It's our job, Codes."

"Fuck the job! I don't wanna hear another word about our damn job!" Cody was almost in tears again "You mean more to me than wrestling, you're more than my partner! You're my best friend, my lover, and I can't lose you! I just…_can't_."

Cody's voice cracked and shattered, tears without sobs pouring down his cheeks. He ducked his head, eyes screwed shut as he tried to swallow them down.

//Stop it! Stop crying! You're always getting emotional, what are you? Five? Ted doesn't need this, he needs a man. Be a damn man for him!//

Before the brunette could even try to gain back his composure, warm fingertips brushed the tears off his cheek.

Cody snapped his gaze up, finding his love staring back at him.

"I get it, Baby-boy, I do" Ted confessed in a hushed tone "I almost lost _you_ today too. When Hunter put my neck in that damn chair, I almost broke face and ran out of there. All I could think of was you, your smile, how much I fuckin' love you. I didn't wanna leave you."

Cody was trembling all over now, "We could've lost everything tonight."

Ted made a sound of frustration, "I…I can't move, I could hurt something without the brace. I wanna hug you so bad right now, Codes, but…"

But Ted saw how much his lover needed him.

"Get up here, Cody."

Blue eyes went wide, "What?"

"It's big enough for both of us, and I don' give a shit what they think" Ted lazily patted his stomach "C'mere, Baby-boy."

Cody wanted to protest, say that his lover was hurt, but couldn't do anything more than nod. Being as careful as he could, he eased himself over the older man's legs and laid out along his body. They both sighed as he finally rested his head on Ted's rock hard stomach, his arms circling his hips lovingly and holding him in a hug.

Ted's eyes fluttered shut, his nose crinkling up. He laced his hand in brunette hair, desperate now to have his lover so close.

"Fuckin' morphine" Ted rasped, sounding like he was in pain "I can't feel you, baby. I can't even feel your hair…God, I already miss…"

"Shhh" Cody rubbed his cheek against him like a content kitten, heart breaking at the sad tone his lover used "It's going to be ok, Teddy. I swear."

Ted wanted to protest, say something profound, but the meds were catching up with him.

Cody held his lover as he fell asleep, vowing to never again let it go this far.


	2. They Hurt Me Too

And this is the one where Cody gets hurt real bad, even though when I started this I basically thought he was dead. Turns out he's fine. Ted's pale and black-eyed, but Cody's looking better than ever and back on RAW. And he won a match that Monday!

So here's what would have happened if Cody had gotten hurt.

**PS: Everybody give a big round of applause to Dusty Rhodes! It's the first time I've tried to seriously stretch my Dusty-muse, because my last portrayal of him was pathetic.**

* * *

Ted approached the wide observation window, blanched and worn out. A dark purple bruise colored his left eye, but he barely felt the sting. His limbs were heavy, numb now when they were sore not an hour ago. An hour ago…when his lover, his Coddles, was shipped from the ring on a stretcher. The horrible image was embedded in the young DiBiase's mind forever. It burned him through to think that he could've prevented it.

…_if I had just been quicker, if I had just been smarter about it…_

But that wasn't the case. He hadn't been able to help his beloved when he had gotten trapped in that cage alone. Ted had to watch as Hunter and Shawn took turns tossing the young man around like he was nothing but a sack of grain. The heart-wrenching sounds that escaped Cody's throat were almost too much to bear, and every scream of protest Ted let out had been real. By the end of the beating, he could tell that Cody was hurting more than he ever had before.

So they strapped him down, put him in a neck brace, and took him to the nearest hospital.

Randy followed close behind him; Ted hadn't been able to drive himself.

"You need to let someone check you over" Randy stated, not for the first time that night.

"I'm fine" Ted bit out through clenched teeth.

Randy looked the younger man over, noting the bruises that peeked past the hems of his shirt and the black eye he sustained, "No, you're not."

Crimson dotted the back of his white shirt, staining it, revealing that he had been hit at the wrong angle at some point in the match.

"_Listen_" Ted whipped around, fire in his cerulean eyes "Cody, _my_ Cody, is in there in God knows how much pain because of me. I thought I heard something about him breaking his damn back! This could be the end for him, Randy! I can't fuckin' take another minute of not knowing, and yer not gonna stop me from seeing him as soon as I can!"

Randy held out his palms, stopping dead in his tracks, "Alright, Teddy, alright. Just…be calm, ok? Once you see that the kid is fine, _then _will you let someone take a look at you?"

"I've got some pain pills in my bag, I'll be alright" Ted turned, walking at a much slower pace toward the window. In a way, he didn't want to look. What if Cody couldn't breath on his own? What if he was permanently injured? His boy had just started blazing, a shooting star not even a quarter across the sky, and now _this_ happened. DX had no right to do what they did, they hadn't even _tried_ to pulled their punches with Cody out there. Every hit was full on, aimed to hurt, aimed to torture.

Even in kayfabe, those two egomaniacs didn't like the fact that two up-and-comers defeated them in a submission match. Planned down to the last move, their pride simply couldn't let them leave it how it had been. And now? Cody was paying for it.

Ted stopped in front of the window, swallowing down his concern and peering inside. Cody was laying there on the hospital bed, out cold. He had an oxygen mask over his face, his breath fogging the plastic with every exhale. His shirt was gone, revealing his wrapped ribs and some kind of brace low on his hips to support his lower back. He had an IV piercing the soft inner skin of his forearm, the steady saline drip laced with morphine to take the edge off anything he was feeling. Bruises colored his flesh, some mirroring Ted's own body almost comically.

Cody looked…God, he wished he could say _peaceful_, but the words that came to mind were harsh.

Cody looked broken. He looked like he was in pain, even with the morphine.

Ted couldn't take it, he pounded his fist onto the glass in frustration. A strong hand fell down onto his unbruised shoulder, a solid grounding as he nearly lost himself in his grief. He sank against the wall, leaning his head against the cool window and letting it sooth his fever hot flesh.

"This is my fault" he murmured, crestfallen.

"Come on, Teddy" Randy pulled him back into a half hug, casting his sad gaze on the youth in the hospital room "You can go sit by him after you get looked over, ok?"

Ted nodded, slowly pulled away by the older man.

//I'm sorry, Cody// Ted let his palm linger on the glass, teary eyes locked on his lover's broken form //When you get out of here, I'm going to make it up to you. Somehow.//

That Thursday on _Superstars_, Ted basically declared his love for Cody to the world.

"_I want your thoughts and prayers to be with my partner tonight."_

Cody watched from his hospital room, still reclined in the bed and still a bit drugged up. His father was seated beside him in the plush armchair, smiling fondly at the TV. He tilted his head toward his son, the same fond smile on the boy's face as well.

"Well, a-looka that" Dusty chuckled "Little Teddy's got it bad-bad for ya, I do say."

"Yeah, Daddy" Cody murmured, eyelashes at half mast as Ted took the brunt of the boos on his behalf "I love him."

"Well, I know-a this" Dust reached out, gently patting the young man's hand "You-a two lovey-dove birds have been shacked up for _quite_ some time, now. But he's a good boy, my son, he's a damn good boy and he damn loves ya and a father couldn't ask for less. I'd be pretty 'nigh selfish if I wanted better for you, cause let me tell you - let me _tell you_…"

Dusty sighed heavily, leaning back in his seat with a satisfied smile as Ted proceeded to beat the hell out of Evan, "…there ain't a-one better for my son than little Teddy. You two were a-meant to be, I tell you what. Yer mother even says so herself."

"Thanks, Daddy."

* * *

**Well, what do you think? I just wanted some nice Codiasi H/C, and I think I got it. It took me WAY too long to write it, though. So much Codiasi, so little time. Guh *sigh***

**Love, Emono**


End file.
